Data sharing is one of the cornerstones of modern science that enables large-scale analyses and reproducibility. We evaluated data availability in research articles across nine disciplines in Nature and Science magazines and recorded corresponding authors’ concerns, requests and reasons for declining data sharing. Although data sharing has improved in the last decade and particularly in recent years, data availability and willingness to share data still differ greatly among disciplines. We observed that statements of data availability upon (reasonable) request are inefficient and should not be allowed by journals. To improve data sharing at the time of manuscript acceptance, researchers should be better motivated to release their data with real benefits such as recognition, or bonus points in grant and job applications. We recommend that data management costs should be covered by funding agencies; publicly available research data ought to be included in the evaluation of applications; and surveillance of data sharing should be enforced by both academic publishers and funders. These cross-discipline survey data are available from the plutoF repository.

The present article focuses on the question of whether the timbre difference of two sounds with harmonic spectra, produced by natural musical instruments or the singing voice, may influence subjective assessments of the pitch of one sound in relation to the pitch of the other. The authors administered a series of perception tests to a group of professional musicians (n = 13) and a group of non-musicians (n = 13). The tests used the following pre-recorded sounds: the singing voice, the sound of the viola, and the sound of the trumpet. The participants had to compare the pitch of pairwise presented successive tones and decide whether the second tone was either 'flat', 'sharp' or 'in tune'. Tests using stimuli in the pitch range around A3 (220 Hz) at a loudness level of approximately 90 phons revealed pitch shifts of significant magnitude likely to affect intonation quality in a musical performance among both musicians and non-musicians. The conclusion drawn from the study is that timbre-induced pitch shifts may attain magnitudes that are likely to lead to conflicts between subjective and fundamental-frequency-based pitch assessments. Situations are described in which such conflicts may arise in actual musical practice.

In this preliminary study, improvisational songs of 43 Estonian children (22 girls, 21 boys, M age = 5.5 years, age range: 2-8 years) were collected using the AIRS Test Battery of Singing Skills (ATBSS). Improvisational songs from two tasks of the ATBSS (song completion and song creation) were evaluated by three experts according to the performance's coherence with the relevant criteria of children's songs in the Western musical canon (a song has a melody and a rhythm and ends on the tonic) and the spontaneity of the singing process. Combining these two parameters we could describe four types of songs. Due to the size and diversity of the sample, this article does not report statistical evidence to support the proposed typology, but rather reports trends in the results to provide new research questions for further research. The results show that most of the children in this study had acquired the rules of children's songs in the Western tonal musical canon by the age of four and could apply them in creative test-like situations, whether they did so consciously or spontaneously. Most of the children were consistent with their song-making strategies (conscious vs. spontaneous) during the two different improvisational tasks.In this article, we report the results of a preliminary study of 43 Estonian children who were tested using the test battery developed within the framework of the international project

A Test Battery created in Canada, aimed at mapping the musical development of children of different ages and in different cultures, was piloted within a group of Estonian children (N = 26, age 4 to 12 years) with varying degrees of musical training. The verbal parts of the test were translated into Estonian and adapted, where necessary, to the temporal structure of the sub-tasks involving rhythmic and metric aspects. Participants were able to successfully comply with the majority of the test components. The most interesting discrepancy regarding the rationale of the original Battery was related to the different possible concepts of the term 'song' by the participants. As many children exhibited considerable shyness during testing, a longer warming-up period may be required for them in order to overcome the effects of an unfamiliar environment and the unexpected nature of some tasks within the Battery. Various suggestions are presented for the further development of the Test Battery.